Keir starmer

This morning, in a blaze of publicity, Royal Navy commandos boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the English channel in a move that No. 10 heralded as a blow against Vladimir Putin's war machine. It's good, of course, that for the first time in the war the British government has followed the example of the French and finally taken action. However, the boarding of the 107,000 ton Smyrtos has much more to do with political theatre than with actually strangling Russia’s economy.  The boarding of the Smyrtos has much more to do with political theatre than with strangling Russia’s economy  Though you’d never know it from statements from No.10 or Labour ministers, transporting and selling Russian oil is not in itself illegal.

It reminded me a little of that wonderful Christmas Day truce in the first world war, when the two sides briefly came together, put aside their homicidal enmities and played a game of football and sang carols. The venue was the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough, fittingly on Good Friday. Boro, then second in the Championship, were hosting my team, Millwall, third in the Championship. The end of the season was nearing. The tension was acute and pressing and unrelenting. Whoever won would be in pole position for automatic promotion to the Premier League. Not an empty seat in the ground, Millwall too having sold out their allocation of 2,100 tickets. A frenetic, hostile atmosphere, the sets of supporters howling their abuse at the other side. A Manichean divide – unbridgeable, surely?